Their BB10 phones were already competition. But people just bought iPhone and Android because they are juggernauts.
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Opinion noted. And let's not forget, blackberry didn't make the perfect advice either. It's not a secret Some of their device quality suffered because of it.
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You seem to have a lot of issues with android and your conflating that with two different things. It's not as bad as you're making it sound.
The Z10 sucked battery, but it was removable and had a great charger. It was not bad quality.
Poor quality blackberry happened when they started outsourcing.
The same exact comment could be made with regard to windows phones.
The fact, is that people, were more comfortable getting an iPhone or Android phone. It didn't help matters that BB tried to please it's rabid following (mostly business users), and try to entice consumers to buy their phones. The end result, is a phone that it pleased no one.
With BB's well documented problems, people were reluctant to spend several hundred dollars on a phone from a company that was failing.
Not true. Blackberry had issues in house as well. It wasn't just outsourcing. There were lots of blackberry threads discussing this. And this is coming from somebody that had extensive experience with them over the years.
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BeCause they didn't market them. But for those who did have experience with them, they were widely available.
Who's fault is that? Seems like BB made a number of significant missteps during their decline.
No, they license third party makers. They're essentially out of the hardware business now.
Maybe they had quality problems with old phones, I don't know since I started with BB10. Their in-house BB10 phones are very nicely made.
They did not market them very much, but mainly operators were only interested in Android, iPhone, and Windows, so people did not know BB10 existed.
BlackBerry Mobile (which is in fact TCL that licensed the BlackBerry name and software) is making a comeback this year. Compared to iPhone sales it is very modest, of course, but nevertheless.
I always had an iPhone as my private phone and a BlackBerry for business, and to this day I just love the physical keyboard on the BlackBerries. While not really faster to type, it's much more prone to typing errors and just a lot of fun.
Being disappointed with Apple over the last years, I switched over completely to the BlackBerry KEYone with dual-sim just a few weeks back, and so far I'm not looking back. It has two-day battery life, super-fast fingerprint scanner in the spacebar, headphone jack, and you can assign two shortcuts (long press and short press) to every single key. So basically everything that I value and that is gone in the iPhone X's and beyond.
The BlackBerry Motion from this article is similar for people that don't want a physical keyboard.
Mark my words: Don't write off the BlackBerry brand yet.
I always had an iPhone as my private phone and a BlackBerry for business, and to this day I just love the physical keyboard on the BlackBerries. While not really faster to type, it's much more prone to typing errors and just a lot of fun.
Being disappointed with Apple over the last years, I switched over completely to the BlackBerry KEYone with dual-sim just a few weeks back, and so far I'm not looking back. It has two-day battery life, super-fast fingerprint scanner in the spacebar, headphone jack, and you can assign two shortcuts (long press and short press) to every single key. So basically everything that I value and that is gone in the iPhone X's and beyond.
The BlackBerry Motion from this article is similar for people that don't want a physical keyboard.
Mark my words: Don't write off the BlackBerry brand yet.
They're succeeding in enterprise software, not so much with regard to mobile phones.
They don't build phones any more. As I said, TCL does that under BlackBerry license. BlackBerry provides a specially hardened version of Android and some apps (like the Hub, for example), though.
And TCL apparently is seeing pretty good sales for the BB branded phones. They actually did many things right with the KEYone, much better than BB with the last phones they really built themselves.
Can you blame the operators? Space is limited, do they sell a phone from a company that looks like they were circling the drain, or have space for an android maker that is more of a sure bet. Then there's the risk of actually selling the phone, to a customer who may not like it at all, because it wasn't android or iOS.
That's what the iPhone Plus has been since 2014. With hardware and software as well optimized as Apple's, you don't need to shove in a bigger battery (or more RAM), which adds cost and weight, like competitors have to because they use off-the-shelf parts.
Yes, I can blame them for throwing the industry into a duopoly for their own disadvantage.
If you want blame someone for that, blame the developers who didn't write software for Windows Mobile and BB10 OS, and the users that for the very same reason didn't buy those phones.
BB 10 is actually a very good operating system. It was way more advanced than Android at the time. But other than Apple with iOS, BlackBerry's userbase was never large enough for many App developers to make it worthwile to support that platform.
There are still some features in BB 10 OS that I miss to this day. That operating system was totally engineered for productivity.
Well, that's your opinion, but operators look to ensure their profits are not endangered. BB failed to respond to the changing winds of the mobile market. They (like MS) thought a virtual keyboard was a joke and people would still buy their phones. That wasn't the case, yet as market share continued to slide, what did they do? Nothing, they just kept rolling out their phones with a physical keyboard, and an OS that was barely functional compared to iOS and android. Only when it was too late they then bought out QNX and made BB10
Operators like consumers owe BB no loyalty, I don't blame any business that chooses to walk away from a failing company. It makes little business sense to hitch a ride on a company who's marketshare was falling like a meteor falling from the sky.
BB10 has quite a bit of their own apps, plus it can run many Android apps. Way better than WP, but people did not know.
It did not matter if developers would write apps for Windows Phone. Most people will avoid Microsoft if they have a choice, especially after Nokia.
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So you agree that Apple should have ceased to exist around 2000.
I used a BlackBerry Classic until I got my KEYone a few weeks ago. Yes, you can run some Android Apps and download them from the Amazon App Store. But the Android runtime on BB 10 is very old, and the Amazon App Store is a terrible user experience. And it is missing the most crucial app of all: WhatsApp.
I know you can sideload the Play Store on it or installl WhatsApp by other means, but that's nothing the average user can or wants to do.
No, but I could understand businesses and even consumers avoiding them. Apple got an infusion of cash from MS to keep them alive and did something that few other companies did. Turned around and changed the industry,
What did BB do? They produced an OS (BB10) that was no different then android or iOS functionally speaking so, why should operators suddenly drop an android phone to make space for a company that was circling the drain?
MANY apps. The Amazon appstore is not a horrible experience. I don't care about Whatsapp, I have BBM.
BB10 had Whatsapp but Facebook removed it. I can see a market distortion there.
Yeah that was not the nicest move from Facebook, but that's hardly surprising. Facebook in general is a joke.
I like BBM, but just like BB 10, the userbase is just too small.
I also had hopes that BB 10 would be more successful, but at some point you have to accept reality. Android is not as bad as it used to be any more, and the BB's software suite for it is quite nice -- although the original Hub on BB 10 is still superior. I'm glad that this way there's at least one company on the market that sill builds devices with a keyboard.
I like my Passport. If BlackBerry want to sell me another phone, they better make another real BB10.